Chessboard
by The Elleth Meowen
Summary: Magneto gets into a conversation with a young boy about the problems their prejudice world faces, all over a game of chess. One-shot.


**Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men, nor do I want to offend anyone.**

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Magneto stared at the empty chess board, thoughtful. The park was empty and quiet, perfect for meditating on those bothersomely deep moral subjects that everyone kept debating. He was so deeply involved in working out all of his thoughts that he didn't notice a seven-year-old boy skip over and sit down in the seat opposite him, also staring intently at the chess board. At length, the boy got bored and asked, "What are you staring at, sir? This board is empty."

Magneto started at the boy's voice and looked up abruptly. The little boy had dark skin, black hair, and enormous dark eyes. Magneto eyed the child carefully. He had on a blue and white striped polo and brown shorts, with Nike tennis shoes on his feet and a blue watch on his wrist. After a moment of contemplation, the older man asked kindly, "Are you a mutant?"

"What's that, sir?" the boy returned innocently. Magneto smiled at the boy in a friendly, patient way, "A mutant is someone who has special powers."

"Oh! My mom says that I have special powers!" The boy said excitedly. Magneto chuckled, "Does she, now?"

The boy happily nodded, "Yep! She says that I have the power to make people smile."

"A very good ability to have," Magneto responded. So the boy wasn't a mutant. This innocent boy swinging his legs boredly on a chair much too big for him would grow up to hate mutants, to call them freaks, to lock them away and force "cures" upon them. A bit of hate awakened inside the old man, along with disappointment in the world. But he couldn't hurt this boy, even if he wasn't a brother. Well, he supposed that he could, but there was no reason to. Magneto tilted his head, "What's your name, son?"

"Charles. But most people call me Charlie, except for my mom when I'm in trouble," the boy answered obediently. Magneto smiled at him, "Well, Charlie, I have a good friend named Charles. We used to play chess here every once in a while."

Upon seeing the old man's far off look, Charlie straightened up and asked, "Do you want to play? I'm not that good yet, but Uncle Will is teaching me how to play really good."

Magneto again felt a smile come to his lips as he began setting up the pieces of his own metal chess set, helping the young boy correctly place his plastic ones while his own metal pieces seemed to magically know where to go. Charlie stopped setting up his own pieces to watch, awed by this event. Magneto chuckled and explained, "I can control metal. That is my special power."

"Cool!" Charlie exclaimed, content to watch the metal pieces float around and position themselves. Once both sides had been set up, Magneto went first, using his powers to move one of the center pawns up two spaces. Charlie started with the pawn at the very left end, moving that up two spaces as well. Magneto moved again, using a knight to protect his pawn. Then Charlie went, moving the pawn second to the left end up one space as he claimed, "I know what you're doing. Uncle Will does the same thing."

"And have you ever beat him, Charlie?" Magneto asked, using his turn to move his other knight to mirror the first. Charlie continued going down the line, moving his next pawn up two, "Nope! But he says to never give up."

"I might have to play him one day," Magneto mused aloud, moving his other center pawn up two spaces. Charlie shook his head as he continued his zig-zag pattern, "Uncle Will doesn't like white people. He says that white people don't like him. But my mom says that it's a two-way street."

"And what do you think?" Magneto asked a few turns later. A few of Charlie's pawns had been captured, and Magneto had lost a bishop. Charlie shrugged, "I dunno. I have a few white friends, and they're nice. Momma's usually right, though. She says to be nice to others."

"But what if they are mean first?" Magneto asked as he captured the boy's knight. Charlie seemed unfazed by this and captured Magneto's pawn, "Momma says to be nice anyway. I told my friend Ray that after he punched a kid that was mean to him. He got in trouble for punching him, so I said to be nice because the mean kids don't like it. Ray tried it next time and the mean kid got in trouble instead of him, but not before the mean kid punched Ray. But now the mean kid is being watched by the teachers, so he can't bother Ray anymore."

"But if Ray had shown the mean kid that he was stronger, then he wouldn't have been hurt," Magneto pointed out. Charlie shrugged again, "Maybe, but then the teachers would have sent him to time-out. Time-out is where the bad kids go. It's boring, and the teachers write a letter to your parents. I was in time-out once for telling a white kid to go and jump in a river. Momma wasn't happy. Uncle Will had told me to say that to any white kid who got in my way. Momma doesn't like Uncle Will to say that. She put him in time-out, too!"

Magneto moved automatically for a few turns, his mind elsewhere. Eventually, he asked the boy, "What else does your mother say?"

"She says that you can't tell if a person's good because of what he looks like," Charlie happily shared. "She says that some blacks are bad people and some whites are bad people, and that you can't tell the difference until you talk to them. She says that most people are good people, though. They're just confused or scared."

"What are they scared of?" Magneto questioned. The boy shrugged, "Momma says that they're scared of people like Uncle Will. They don't want to get hurt, so they try to hurt first. Like you said earlier, they want to show that they are stronger. Some blacks hurt whites, some whites hurt blacks, and the news people get a whole lot of money talking about it. Momma doesn't like the news people."

Magneto let this sink in. This little boy was unknowingly describing exactly why the mutants had to band together and act. They had to crush the humans before the humans began to fight evolution. The humans only wanted to "cure" them. Humans wanted to get rid of them. Then they would get rid of the humans first!

"The only problem is that no one actually wants to hurt anyone," Charlie rambled on, interrupting Magneto's thoughts again. Magneto smile patiently at the boy, "But they do. Some people do, Charlie."

"I guess some people do, but Momma says that those people aren't right in the head. Momma says that most people are really nice. She says that most people will accept us for who we are on the inside, especially if we accept _them_ on the inside. There are always mean people, but color has nothing to do with it. She just wants people to get along."

"But that will never happen, Charlie," Magneto promised gravely, moving his queen. He was one move away from winning the game. "People will never get along. You'll realize that when you're older."

"Maybe they won't _completely_ get along, sir. Even if people were all black or all white, Momma says that they would still fight. But I think that the real reason they don't get along is because they won't give each other a chance. They keep watching the news people talk about white cops shooting black men and black cops arresting white men. They won't talk to their neighbors anymore. They think that everyone who looks the same is the same," Charlie told him confidently. He then furrowed his eyebrows and hurriedly glanced at his watch. His eyes widened, "Oops! It's 5:43! I need to get home, sir! Momma's making mashed potatoes! See you later!"

"Wait, Charlie! It's your turn!" Magneto called to the boy, who had already jumped off of his seat and had been sprinting away. He chuckled to himself as the boy turned back, running to the chessboard. Charlie had barely moved a piece before he had taken off again, shouting over his shoulder, "Goodbye, sir! I hope you have a nice day!"

Magneto slowly shook his head with amusement as the boy disappeared from view. Such a charming young lad, even if he wasn't a mutant. Magneto looked back at the chessboard, ready to make his winning move. But he stopped and could only stare. The boy's bishop had an unhindered shot at his king. The boy had won.

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 **Please note that I intended this to be anti-racist. Please no flames! I tried my very best, but I'm treading on ice here. Tell me how well I did, and please tell me if you get offended because I can and will fix this if I need to.**


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